Alternative term for women, designed to avoid perceived sexism
The term womxn is an alternative spelling of the English word woman. Womxn has been found in writing since the 1970s, along with the term womyn, to avoid perceived sexism in the standard spelling, which contains the word "man".[1] The term "womxn" began gaining more attention and use in the 2010s as intersectional feminists promoted it as explicitly inclusive.[2] It has been adopted by various organizations, including student university groups in the US and UK, who call it more inclusive than women and other alternative spellings.[3][4][5] Conversely, it has been criticized for being unnecessary or confusing, conflicting with the uncommonness of mxn to describe men.[6][7][8] It has also been criticized as being more divisive than inclusive, and particularly for having a transphobic implication that trans women are not women but are a separate category (womxn).[9][10]
The word woman is derived from the Old Englishwīfmann ("woman-person"), which is formed from wīf (the source of wife), then meaning "woman", and mann (the source of man), then meaning "person, human", originally without connotations of gender.[11][12]Man took on its additional masculine meaning in the Late Middle English period, replacing the now-obsolete word wer.[13] This has created the present situation with man bearing a dual meaning—either masculine or nonspecific.[14]
Second wave feminism developed several alternative political spellings of the word "woman", such as womyn.[15]Brandeis University sociologist Keridwen Luis states that feminists have experimented for decades to devise a suitable alternative for the term identifying the female gender. Such terms have included "wimmin" (in the 1990s), based upon the original Old English term, and "womyn" (since at least 1975).[16][17][18]
Definition[]
Dictionary.com, which added womxn and 300 other words to its dictionary in 2019,[19] defines womxn as "a woman (used, especially in intersectional feminism, as an alternative spelling to avoid the suggestion of sexism perceived in the sequences m-a-n and m-e-n, and to be inclusive of trans and nonbinary women)."[3]
In 2017 The Boston Globe called the term "a powerful, increasingly popular label, encompassing a broader range of gender identities than 'woman'—or even older feminist terms such as 'womyn'... a nontraditional spelling for people whose gender identity doesn’t fit in the traditional boxes".[16] In 2018 Jennie Kermode, chair of Trans Media Watch, stated that the organization would not use the term, considering that women already includes trans women.[20] In a 2019 Styles article published in The New York Times, journalist Breena Kerr stated that while womxn was difficult to pronounce, it was "perhaps the most inclusive word yet",[17] using a similar approach to the term "Latinx". Sociologist Nita Harker praised the term's ambiguity in pronunciation, saying that it forces users to "stop and think".[16]
Current uses[]
Womxn's March on Seattle, 2018
In 2017, the Womxn's March on Seattle chose to use the term "womxn" to promote the march. Elizabeth Hunter-Keller, the event's communications chair, told The New York Times that they chose it based upon the recommendation of a core organizer, who was a nonbinary person, and to reflect the organizing group's diversity. Hunter-Keller reported that although there were some questions, most supporters encouraged the choice.[17] In January 2018, Portland held the Indigenous Womxn’s March, dedicated to missing and murdered indigenous girls, women, and transgender people.[21]
In October 2019, the Wellcome Collection, a museum and library in London, made an announcement through Twitter using the term to demonstrate their goal of including diverse perspectives; after complaints from hundreds of followers, the museum later apologized and removed the term from its website.[17][22]Labour Party politician Jess Phillips responded to the incident by saying, "I've never met a trans woman who was offended by the word woman being used, so I'm not sure why this keeps happening".[20] Clara Bradbury-Rance of King's College London conjectured that the push-back was because the use of the term was seen as too simplistic and a "fix-all".[20]
On March 1, 2021, the streaming platformTwitch used the term "Womxn" to promote events celebrating Women's History Month. The event was announced through Twitter, which led to immediate backlash from various users who considered the term transphobic for implying that trans women are not women but a separate category (womxn). Twitch removed the tweet and apologised, stating that they wanted to use the word to acknowledge the shortcomings of gender-binary language and that they would use the term "women" moving forward.[9][10]
^Scupin, Raymond (2012). Cultural anthropology: a global perspective (8th ed.). Boston: Pearson. p. 96. ISBN978-0205158805.
^Karpinski, Monica (2020-08-19). "What You Need To Know About The Intersectional Term 'Womxn'". Daye. While there are valid reasons to reject the term, for many, it is an important way to signal inclusion and to acknowledge differences between different groups of women. Dr. Danai Mupotsa, senior lecturer in African literature at the University of the Witwatersrand, uses ‘womxn’ to signal inclusion of cisgender and transgender women. ‘Womxn’ also has significance within Black feminism, says Dr. Mupotsa. “The term came into very popular use in the last few years in Black public feminisms, to think and practice in ways where difference becomes a productive site of struggle.
^ ab"Definition of womxn". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 22 June 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
^J. M. J. Marvuso et al, "Overcoming Essentialism in Community Psychology", in Floretta Boonzaier, Taryn van Niekerk (eds.), Decolonial Feminist Community Psychology (2019, Springer, ISBN9783030200015), page 12
^Scupin, Raymond (2012). Cultural anthropology: a global perspective (8th ed.). Boston: Pearson. p. 96. ISBN978-0205158805. (for derivation of 'woman' from 'man')
^"wīfmann": Bosworth & Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Oxford, 1898–1921) p. 1219. The spelling "wifman" also occurs: C.T. Onions, Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (Oxford, 1966) p. 1011
^Webster's New World Dictionary, Second College Edition, entry for "woman".
